Information and restoration about Victorian ‘Closed’ type cooking ranges.
Here we have a Belle Portable dating from circa 1920. These ranges were manufactured by Jones & Campbell in there thousands and were the companies most popular line throughout much of the early 20th century.
This one has been painstakingly restored and is now ready to go back home where we have been assured it will be in daily use!
We recently acquired this fantastic Crittall Cooker. It dates from the 1930s and is quite unlike any other cooking apparatus common to this country. I believe Richard Crittall & Co were working with a European manufacturers and badge engineering this cookers under there name.
The range boasts two ovens, two hot closets, a coal scuttle and a huge hot plate. It is of enameled steel construction with cast iron top plate and firebox, heavily lined with firebrick and cast and chrome plated mouldings and details. These ranges are exceptionally rare and would make for a stunning feature.
The Crittall Cooker is available as a decorative piece or fully working. We can also install this range for you if required.
We were down in Devon last week to remove this fantastic ‘Herald’ double oven kitchen range. It is going to have the full treatment in our workshops and then will be returned and installed as a fully functional range. We are looking to have the work complete by January so watch this space!
We finished the restoration of a nice little Larbert Portable Range this week. When it arrived it was in an absolute mess and has been fully rebuilt including stainless steel oven and ashpan, several new castings, new fire stones and a fully ‘black lead’ polished finish. It is now back at its home in London and will be earning its keep again once more this winter.
They might be a lot of work but these brilliant little Hostess range really are a thing to behold. These ranges would have been fitted to the vast majority of travelling wagons and van for both the showmen and gypsies of the late 19th/ early 20th century. This examples dates from circa 1920 and now restoration is complete it will be returned to its original van
We have just completed the restoration and installation of this fantastic New Gold Medal Eagle Range. It is original to the building, dating from circa 1920 and removed by our team two years ago when the work at Hinton House formally began. We successfully lit a fire in the grate for the first time in probably in excess of 70 years and it drew perfectly. Very pleased with this one.
Here is a picture our client at Gressenhall Museum and Workhouse sent us after they had put back all the period decorations on the kitchen range we restored for them a short while ago. This range is used regularly when the museum is open and I’m told they even teach visiting schools how to cook on it!
And here’s another beautiful Hostess No35 from a 1930s showman’s van. You can’t get much posher than this! We completed a full restoration on this including new casting, vitroeus enamel and nickel plating. A picture speaks a thousand words comes to mind.
Here is an image of the sand mould that has been prepared by packing the sand around the wooden pattern that we prepared a short while ago. The mould will now be closed and and liquid iron poured into the cavity that has been left and so producing the required iron casting for this project.
